


Loss Ficlet: Finish

by missclairebelle



Series: Loss (Ficlets) [15]
Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 03:58:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14633619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missclairebelle/pseuds/missclairebelle
Summary: Claire's big O has abandoned her.





	Loss Ficlet: Finish

**Author's Note:**

> From prompt:   
> _I love the world you’ve created for J & C in Loss. I always look forward to new installments. I was hoping you may be able to incorporate something... I love J & C smut as much as the next person but it always gets me that Claire (in the books, tv series & fics) can orgasm so quickly and easily. As someone who has never orgasmed w/ a partner at 32, I am envious and also wish there was something I could relate to. Could you write a scene where Claire has a hard time & Jamie helps her?_

******Loss (Modern AU)**

**Finish**

**February 2017**

Clinically, an orgasm is defined by various physiological responses.  The ascending of a pulse and heartrate, the rising of blood pressure. Involuntary spasms and contractions – clench, release, again and again. A whole mess of chemicals flooding and activating various parts of the brain.  A simple, physiological peak that alters consciousness and feels, to be candid, really, really good.

And I had not had an orgasm in six days. My body was in a full-scale revolt.

I could hardly remember the feeling. Without it, searching for it, I was going mad.

On Saturday night, Jamie and I arrived home drunk. Having been pressed against each other for the better part of the night while dancing with John and David, we were almost feral. We had clumsy sex with my body bent over the couch.  Dress rucked up to my waist, my knickers abandoned in the entryway; we were all sloppiness and laughter. We jokingly attributed my lack of an orgasm to being properly sauced. With his arm wedged between our bodies and his hand curved around the heavy swell of my breast we slept late into the morning.

On Sunday afternoon, I initiated what I intended to be a kitchen quickie. With fumbling hands slipping down the front of his jeans, I cooed, “Fancy a nooner?”

He put the carrot he was peeling down and braced himself against the sink.

“I’m going to assume that you’re sanctioning the removal of your pants.”  

He groaned a sound kind of like “ _yes_ ,” and I took it as an invitation to draw down his zipper.

The “quickie” dissolved into an entire afternoon where we hunted for completion. When _it_ was clearly not going to happen surrounded by the debris of rapidly-wilting and half-made salad, Jamie carried me to our bedroom.  

And still there was _nothing_. A dull pleasure, the satisfaction of closeness, the throb of need.

“Let’s try somethin’ else,” he grumbled, brow furrowed.  His tongue mapped the length of my torso before closing in at the apex of my thighs. His stomach growled and I pushed him back, drawing my knees to my chest and shaking my head.  

The third night, Monday, we were sprawled out on the couch watching television.  During a particularly boring commercial we started touching each other over our clothes like teenagers. I pushed his hands away when he went for the waistband of my gym shorts. Instead, I set about taking him in my mouth.  

I let the litany of dirty things that flowed from his lips, and the tug of fingers threaded through my hair, wash over me. When he finished, I leaned back and looked up at him through my eyelashes. “Will you watch me?” I asked, completely unashamed at the prospect.  

“Are you kiddin’, Sassenach? Of course.”  

It was not the first time he had watched me touch myself, but it felt different.  When I moved to straddle him, clothes shed to the floor and my fingers between my legs, he sighed with such astonishment that I could not help that my love for him surged.

After a bit, he glanced down at my breasts and asked, “May I?” Eyes still glazed from his own orgasm and cheeks slightly flushed, his request for permission made me arch into him as I nodded.  

Testing me with a light graze of teeth, I whimpered and steadied myself on his shoulder with one hand.

Embers radiated the promise of a glow in my belly and his whispered encouragement, wet over my breast, urged me on.

But the heat faded. My right calf cramped.  My attention shifted to the awkward angle of my wrist rather than any sort of promise for completion. I ended up crying against his shoulder. 

With a well-meaning smile, he offered to help and I just shook my head.

“I’m sorry,” was all I could manage.  

“Never be sorry about this. How can I help?”  When I went to wrap my arms around my bare breasts, he tugged a blanket over my torso. With the material carefully tucked under my arms, I just shrugged. I stayed there against his chest until the tears stopped.

On Tuesday, neither of us initiated anything.  

In the night I woke to Jamie looking me.  “What are you doing, you creep?” I asked, my voice taking on a false, light tone.

“Watchin’ ye sleep, _mo nighean donn_.”

I fought the impulse to say “ _obviously_.”

He brushed some curls off of my forehead and let his fingertips linger at my cheek.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for a few minutes, but did no’ want to wake ye.”

I turned until my lips rested against the inside of his wrist.

“Is there something bothering ye that ye’ve no’ told me about?”

I knew immediately what he was asking.  He was as fixated on my missing orgasm as I was.  Shaking my head, I allowed my eyes to flutter closed. 

“I don’t know what the deal is, Jamie.  It’s just the usual stress at work.”

Without any further discussion, I drifted back to sleep.

When I woke the next morning, Wednesday, Jamie showed me an email on his phone.  He had ordered a small, pink, curved vibrator. It was different from anything we already kept in my nightstand. I met the gesture with a smile, a kiss on the cheek. I was touched by it, but my mind was utterly lost.

That night we held each other through the night with nothing more than a good night kiss.

On Thursday, I got home from work late. We ate dinner, washed dishes, and got ready for bed with few words.  The look he gave me as we turned down the covers liquefied my insides. By only the low light from the streetlamps shining through the window, we undressed each other wordlessly, hands _everywhere_.  

My body was alive and responsive by the time Jamie pulled away with one eyebrow arched. “Any requests?” he asked, his expression best described as _earnest_.

If it had not been for the previous five nights, I would have laughed at the inquiry and responded something like “ _how about the greatest hits?_ ”  But I was buzzing, needing both a release and for him to help me get there.

“You know my body; give it your best shot.”  My tone was suspended between arousal and resignation.

It apparently lit a fire in him, a rare dominant streak. It was a trait that I relished when things at work got tough and I could not stand the idea of making one more decision.

“Fine.” His tone was warm, but it was not a suggestion.  “Get on the bed.  Spread yer legs.”  

With his hands on my hips, he guided me onto the bed. He looked like a predator stalking its prey as he knelt between my parted thighs.  The look of him hovering over me made my breath catch and I expelled a string of four-letter words when he slipped two fingers into me.

“Look.” 

I complied with his directive, opening one eye. He brought his fingers to his mouth and I about short circuited. 

“Claire, I’m going to make this happen if I die trying.”

And then it was mouth, tongue, fingers, breath, and touch.  

His fingers twisted expertly just as they had a thousand times. Despite the steady grasp his right hand curved on my hip I writhed against the flat of his tongue.

It felt better than _good_. I was dissolving beneath his devotion. It was intoxicating: the mix of his caresses, the sounds rolling from his mouth into me, the hammering of my heart, the rush of knowing that all he wanted in the world was to please me.

The edges of an orgasm teased me. The tips of my fingers tingled. The muscles in my legs tightened.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I groaned, my fingers curling into the duvet. The feeling kept climbing.  I was _right there_. Suddenly I _needed_ to show him the end result of his possession. And just as I felt my entire body turn to dead weight and cognition drip from my brain down my spinal cord, my body turned on me.

The world became pale. The sensations were bathed in bright light and greater than the sum of their parts. Packaged together, the feeling was too much and made my body too sensitive. I attempted to turn from his mouth, unable to speak. Not one to quit, Jamie’s studied lips and tongue persevered.

After another moment, I unwound my fingers from the duvet and brought them to his face. At a volume just above a whisper, I said, “ _Stop_.”  

At the word “ _stop_ ” he stilled completely and brought his chin up, resting it just below my belly button.  His fingers slipped free from me and went to my hips. “Is it something that I–”

I ran a thumb over his cheek, shaking my head.  “Just… I want you inside of me. It’s… it’s… too much for you to keep....”

He sighed and smiled, just a little as if to say “ _sorry, it isn’t you_.”

“I want to try something.” He reached for his pillow and slipped it under my hips. “The angle…”

I looked down and my self-confidence stumbled.  Though I was not entirely surprised to find that he was not completely hard, it still stung a little.   I shifted slightly and ran my fingers down his chest, drawing my hand over his length once, twice, three times.

He was watching me and he shook his head. It was as though he had read my thoughts.  “Dinna read anything into… _that_.”

Left unsaid was that he was a little bit concerned – _why were his usual tricks not working?_ I wanted to tell him to take his own advice (“ _don’t read anything into… this_ ”).  But instead, I bit down on my lip and nodded.

When he asked “can I kiss ye?” I rolled my eyes in invitation. With a laugh, he brought his lips to mine.  The expanse of his shoulders loomed over me, one hand by my head and the other busy kneading my thigh.  I could feel him.  All he needed to do was to press forward.  But he was waiting, hesitating, watching.

“Please?” I sighed against his mouth. He obliged with a fluid roll of his hips.   _Completeness_ rolled over me and the angle he created was sharpening every nerve ending, priming them to explode.

It felt like hours passed, even though it was probably only minutes.  We switched positions.  Gentle, slow. Harder, faster. Somewhere in between. His fingers worked between my legs to meet the rhythm of his hips as his lips confessed a multitude of things in my ear.

There were statements of love, the things he wanted to do to my body, and the things that I did to his.  

But they did not hold their usual magic.

“Are ye close?” His face was tensed in concentration – jaw drawing tight, nostrils flaring.  I could tell he was restraining himself.  

“Jamie…” I ran a hand up his spine to rest between his shoulders. “Come for me… just do it.”

“Are ye… are ye… _fuck_ …” He slowed, exhaling through pursed lips.

“I’m sure.”

Hips slamming against mine twice more, he finished with a husky groan. My world went blank – the effort, the confusion, the disappointment washing away as I traced my fingers over the constellation of freckles along his shoulders.

After a few moments of silence interrupted only by his own ragged breathing, he grunted a single word.

It was a question: “Vibrator?”

I shook my head, reaching down to remove the pillow from beneath my hips.  “No, I don’t think so.”

“So… ye’re just… done?”

The look on his face made me want to cry for him and hold him until our skin was one, to comfort and reassure him.  

At the same time, the entire state of affairs made me want to go sleep in the guest room with blankets that did not smell like either of us drawn to my chest.  I wanted to saturate the pillow with frustrated tears.

And I wanted to do it for _myself_ , without him asking questions or being so god damned _loving_.

“It’s not you,” I sighed, fingers in the damp curls at his nape. The look on his face was heartrending – brows drawn together and his eyes closed.

“But it’s been… a week.”   _He didn’t have to tell me that. I was well aware._

He pressed closer, his face nestling between my breasts and his arms winding around my hips.

“I want ye to feel good.”

Eyes fluttering closed, I tightened my fingers in his hair. “Jamie, it feels good to be close to you, to make love with you, even if I…”

“Even if I canna make ye come anymore?” His tone made my heart skip. ****

Part of me was wholly heartbroken that he was hurting over my body’s insurrection.  Another part of me was a little bit exasperated that I was now tasked with managing his emotional response to the situation.

So I finally said something that I had been thinking for days. It had started as the mere sketch of a thought, but it had grown in complexity and dimension with each day.  Now, with my body frustrated and my mind reeling, it was in full color. 

“Can you please not make this about you?” He looked taken aback, but I continued, needing to say it. “The pressure of knowing that you are looking at this like a personal challenge isn’t helping.”

I exhaled, feeling like I had just voiced at least part of the problem.

Jamie fell silent again, his breath even on my skin.  

“Sex is important to us; it always has been.  We connect through physical affection, but my body’s reaction doesn’t measure your skill–”

“But I love ye–” he started, walking over the end of my words. I pinched his earlobe and gave him a look.

“ ** _Or_** ,” I raised the volume of my voice, “how much I love you. I hope you know that.”

He was quiet long enough that I just assumed he was not going to respond.  “I ken ye love me, Claire. I hope _you_ are well aware of how much I love _you_.”

“ _Of course_ I am.”  I was awake until Jamie slipped out of bed to get ready for his day.

On Friday, I woke when Jamie said goodbye. A cool droplet of water dripped from his hair and onto my forehead when he leaned over the edge of the bed to kiss me.

“Have a good day off of work, aye?”  My eyes fluttered when he dragged his lips over the water droplet.

“ _Aye_ ,” I exhaled. I felt his smile between my eyebrows as he tucked the sheet over my shoulders and beneath my chin. I drifted back asleep.

My internal clock pulled me from bed just before lunch after roughly six good hours of sleep.  I spent the day trying to stay busy. Late in the afternoon, I texted Jamie that I was going to go to workout and that he should meet me at the gym.  Hair in a high ponytail and clad in gym clothes, I spent a punishing seventy-five minutes in a kickboxing class.  I exited to find Jamie standing in front of a mirror doing bicep curls.

His physicality never ceased to amaze me, but he put on an impressive show when working out.  He was graceful despite, his size, and he positively gleamed with sweat.  His cutaneous veins snaked down the front of his bicep and branched over his forearms.  They were a testament to the explosive power latent in his limbs. As a student of the human body, I was awed by him.  As the person who got to sleep next to him every night, I felt a certain feminine pride in my catch **.**

I watched the fact of my presence dawn on him – his hand slipping, dumbbell falling, clipping his shin on the bench, stumbling forward and pivoting _._

“ _Mac na galla_ ,” he snapped, his shoulder connecting with the mirror with a hollow thud. He leaned there for a minute, supporting his swaying body. “ _Fuck_.” 

I could not stop the giggle that grew in my chest and rippled out of me, making my shoulders shake.

The elderly woman on the nearest recumbent bike turned and shot him a look that could kill.  Righting himself, he muttered an apology: “ _Tha mi duilich_.”

She responded back in Gaelic.  From her tone and even without understanding her, I could tell that it was a particularly sharp rebuke.

It only made me laugh harder.  

We met in the middle of the gym floor and I rose onto the tips of my toes to give him a kiss.  The joining of our mouths was met by not a small amount of grumbling from the elderly cyclist.  I erupted in giggles again, unable to stop. Pulling away, Jamie looked confused, but his expression quickly morphed into good humor.  “What’s gotten into ye?”

“ _You_. You’re _ridiculous_ , Fraser. That poor woman. You’ve scandalized her with your profanity.”

“Then… let’s no’ disappoint.”  He took me by the waist and dipped me until I felt blood rushing to my face.  

Once we were home, it took us about one hundred and twenty-seven seconds to fall into bed.

We breathed together, skin and pulses aligning despite sloppy mouths and laughter. He kissed my hipbones, the centerline of my torso, my mouth, just behind my ears, my closed eyelids, and the underside of my chin.  I returned the favor, tasting the tang of his workout on his skin – jaw, pulse, shoulder, ribs, and fingers.

He asked how I wanted him.  I showed him, climbing over him, resting on his belly and cupping his cheek with one hand while guiding him into me with the other.

“You… feel… in–incredible,” I managed, stilling once I was settled astride him.  Heat was multiplying as the space between us was dividing. “Hands….”

He understood, holding up his hands with his fingers spread apart. Threading my fingers through his, I looked at the tangle before drawing one to my breast and the other to my hip. I encouraged him with a gentle squeeze and he lazily started to knead my flesh, his broad hands guiding my smaller ones. Properly situated, I started to move against him, biting down on my lower lip at the pressure increasing in my belly.

“ _Move_ ,” I whispered, feeling a whimper brewing when he angled his hips. I reached for the headboard for a small amount of leverage.  Unmoored from my hand, he slipped his fingers down and over my thigh, my knee, and back.

“Ye look… like…” Whatever his sentiment had been, it was lost in the twilight bathing our bedroom in warm light.  “Tell me…”

In an answer to his soft plea, I guided his hand from my breast down along my side. My voice was barely noticeable in the rushing of my ears, the slip of my body rising, cresting, and falling over him again and again when I said, “Touch me.”  

And he did, reverent and warm, loving but firm – gripping my hips and guiding me over him with an almost-bruising precision. And then damp fingertips danced over collarbones and rough lips worked in arcs on my neck.  

He made the most beautiful noises – sighs, groans, half-words, and vowels.  

I indulged in feeling it all.

It was like drowning – all for a siren lurking at the bottom of a fathomless sea. She was beckoning me to _sink_. His lips tasted like saltwater. ‘ _Just give in, Claire_ ,’ he whispered or the siren whispered, or they both did. Wave after wave washed over my face – _again, again, once more_. As I bobbed aimlessly, legs leaden and drawn to rest in the silt, I gave in to the need to be submerged.

Mind swimming, I reached for the nightstand. Shaking like a leaf, it took my fumbling fingers a few tries to grasp the handle.

“Will it bother you if I…” I slipped the vibrator out of the drawer and held it between us.  Jamie’s face screwed up in confusion.

“I _bought it_. Why on earth would ye think it’d bother me?”

His hand engulfed mine as he turned the knob at the bottom. It was not the first time we had introduced a little “help” to our sex life, but this was the first time we had done so to _cure_ something.

When I dragged the pulsating plastic down his chest and over the hairs on his belly, he jumped a little.

“Was that a _squeak_?” I asked, a little incredulous and unable to stop myself from smirking. I guided the vibrator to rest in just the right place, which earned me a hiss. (“ _Jesus, I can feel it, just from bein’ inside of ye_.”)

A tingling, lukewarm weightlessness filled my chest, and coated my throat. A fog rolled into my vision, blurring every conscious thought.  My blood was thickening in my veins.

“Jamie…” I ground out, his name becoming a three syllable exercise. The clench in my gut stopped me from finishing for a beat. “I need you to take… it…”

He obliged quickly, holding it gently, resting just above where we were joined.  

“hold it… right–”

– he shifted the angle _just so_ , and –

“–oh… _fuck_.”

After a moment I started to move again, getting leverage on his waist. I tipped my head back, mouth open, as if it would help me breathe normally again.

A figure eight.  A slight change in pressure.  

The evolution of my touch into his made me go limp, collapsing forward. My lips against his ear, I groaned the only thing that came to mind: “ _harder_.” With one hand on my hips to hold me still, he indulged my request with such a force that I felt the world shift.  

The last thing I saw before my eyes wrenched shut was the glisten of sweat beading along the side of his neck.  Eyes closed, my tongue darted out to taste him.  The sound he made in response – somewhere between a groan and a curse word – caused something to rip free inside of me.  

My fingernails carved into the hard muscle of his shoulder, feeling the skin dent. _Close.  So close_. His response – a wet swallow and the slip of tongue over his lips – urged me ever closer to the precipice.

“ _Sorcha_ ,” he sighed as his hips met mine with a force that drove the vibrator against me _just right_.  A thrill of awareness at our closeness – him, me, us – tore through me. 

For a series of moments everything went white hot, my muscles tight and threatening to pull me under.

“Don’t–”

_a grunt that barely sounded like it came from me-_

“you dare–”

_a high-pitched keen –_

“stop.”

His laugh and response (“ _okay_ ”) sounded like they traveled a million lightyears to reach me.

When my orgasm crested, my mind went everywhere – an abstract painting of a weightless _nothingness_. I simultaneously existed _for_ him and _within_ him.  He belonged to me. In that moment, my body was mine and no one’s at all. 

I whimpered a feeble “ _Jamie_ ” and “ _oh_ ,” fingers scrabbling between us.  As if he knew what I needed, he withdrew the vibrator and tossed it to the floor still buzzing.

My eyes shut, and electricity coursing through me, Jamie’s voice was disembodied as I fell completely against him, my face against his neck.

In the afterglow, blood red hot and searing my veins, I was only vaguely aware of him finishing himself.

When conscious thought returned, I realized he was drawing a swirling path up and down my spine with his fingertips and mumbling in Gaelic.  

“How was it?” He stilled his hand over my shoulder blade.

I adjusted so I could look him in the eyes, chin resting on his chest.  “Perfect.”

A small, satisfied smile touched his mouth and he started tracing up and down my back again.  For a long time we were caught up in each other’s silence – my body draped over his, his fingers studying my skin.  

Eventually on a deep inhale, he coughed and sniffed. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing.

“Between the gym and… _this_ …” my voice trailed off and my eyes closed.  “We need…”

“Aye, a shower.”

It took me another half an hour to shift off of him and make my way to the bathroom.


End file.
